Falling After 9/11 Crisis in American Art and Literature

by Pozorski, Aimee

• ISBN13: 9781441122414
• ISBN10: 1441122419
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2014-10-23
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

Falling After 9/11 investigates the connections between violence, trauma, and aesthetics by exploring post 9/11 figures of falling in art and literature. From the perspective of trauma theory, Aimee Pozorski provides close readings of figures of falling in such exemplary American texts as Don DeLillo's novel, Falling Man, Diane Seuss's poem, "Falling Man," Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Frédéric Briegbeder's Windows on the World, and Richard Drew's famous photograph of the man falling from the World Trade Center.

Falling After 9/11 argues that the apparent failure of these texts to register fully the trauma of the day in fact points to a larger problem in the national tradition: the problem of reference-of how to refer to falling-in the 21st century and beyond.

Author Biography

Aimee Pozorski is Associate Professor of English at Central Connecticut State University, USA, where she teaches contemporary literature and trauma theory. She is the current President of The Philip Roth Society.

Table of Contents

1. How to Refer to Falling: The Problem of the Twentieth Century
2. Beyond the Figurative: The Falling Man Transformed
3. The Falling Man in Esquire: Video-Documented Truth-Telling
4. Don DeLillo's Performance Art: The Body Artist Meets the Falling Man
5. Ambivalent Beginnings: 9-11 Literature and the Special Case of Diane Seuss
6. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: Jonathan Safran Foer's Iconotextual Response
7. Intergenerational Conflict in the Space of the Towers
Epilogue: Cycle of Terror and Tragedy: Controversy Surrounding the 9-11 Mural of Graydon Parrish
Bibliography
Index